Miss Mehetabels Son | Page 2

felt a pang of regret on hearing the rickety open wagon turn round in
the road and roll off in the darkness. There were no lights visible
anywhere, and only for the big, shapeless mass of something in front of
me, which the driver had said was the hotel, I should have fancied that I
had been set down by the roadside. I was wet to the skin and in no
amiable humor; and not being able to find bell-pull or knocker, or even
a door, I belabored the side of the house with my heavy walking-stick.
In a minute or two I saw a light flickering somewhere aloft, then I
heard the sound of a window opening, followed by an exclamation of

disgust as a blast of wind extinguished the candle which had given me
an instantaneous picture en silhouette of a man leaning out of a
casement.
"I say, what do you want, down there?" inquired an unprepossessing
voice.
"I want to come in; I want a supper, and a bed, and numberless things."
"This is n't no time of night to go rousing honest folks out of their sleep.
Who are you, anyway?"
The question, superficially considered, was a very simple one, and I, of
all people in the world, ought to have been able to answer it off-hand;
but it staggered me. Strangely enough, there came drifting across my
memory the lettering on the back of a metaphysical work which I had
seen years before on a shelf in the Astor Library. Owing to an
unpremeditatedly funny collocation of title and author, the lettering
read as follows: "Who am I? Jones." Evidently it had puzzled Jones to
know who he was, or he would n't have written a book about it, and
come to so lame and impotent a conclusion. It certainly puzzled me at
that instant to define my identity. "Thirty years ago," I reflected, "I was
nothing; fifty years hence I shall be nothing again, humanly speaking.
In the mean time, who am I, sure-enough?" It had never before
occurred to me what an indefinite article I was. I wish it had not
occurred to me then. Standing there in the rain and darkness, I wrestled
vainly with the problem, and was constrained to fall back upon a
Yankee expedient.
"Isn't this a hotel?" I asked finally,
"Well, it is a sort of hotel," said the voice, doubtfully. My hesitation
and prevarication had apparently not inspired my interlocutor with
confidence in me.
"Then let me in. I have just driven over from K------ in this infernal rain.
I am wet through and through."

"But what do you want here, at the Corners? What's your business?
People don't come here, leastways in the middle of the night."
"It is n't in the middle of the night," I returned, incensed. "I come on
business connected with the new road. I 'm the superintendent of the
works."
"Oh!"
"And if you don't open the door at once, I'll raise the whole
neighborhood--and then go to the other hotel."
When I said that, I supposed Greenton was a village with a population
of at least three or four thousand and was wondering vaguely at the
absence of lights and other signs of human habitation. Surely, I thought,
all the people cannot be abed and asleep at half past ten o'clock:
perhaps I am in the business section of the town, among the shops.
"You jest wait," said the voice above.
This request was not devoid of a certain accent of menace, and I braced
myself for a sortie on the part of the besieged, if he had any such
hostile intent. Presently a door opened at the very place where I least
expected a door, at the farther end of the building, in fact, and a man in
his shirtsleeves, shielding a candle with his left hand, appeared on the
threshold. I passed quickly into the house, with Mr. Tobias Sewell (for
this was Mr. Sewell) at my heels, and found myself in a long,
low-studded bar-room.
There were two chairs drawn up before the hearth, on which a huge
hemlock backlog was still smouldering, and on the un-painted deal
counter contiguous stood two cloudy glasses with bits of lemon-peel in
the bottom, hinting at recent libations. Against the discolored wall over
the bar hung a yellowed handbill, in a warped frame, announcing that
"the Next Annual N. H. Agricultural Fair" would take place on the 10th
of September, 1841. There was no other furniture or decoration in this
dismal apartment, except the cobwebs which festooned the ceiling,
hanging down here and there like stalactites.

Mr. Sewell set the candlestick on the mantel-shelf, and threw some
pine-knots on the fire, which immediately broke into a blaze, and
showed him to be